It is almost embarrassing to admit that I finally wrote a letter that I “should have” written when I was 15 years old. At 15, I was so terrified of being rejected that I kept a deep, dark secret all these years. In truth the secret has hurt only me. Boy has it hurt. A victimless act that I was afraid to share with the one person I loved most in the world at that time set the stage for years of shame.

I won’t be sending the letter. I wrote it for me. I sat down and got in touch with that sad, scared 15 year old girl inside me and wrote. I feel free.

I’ve decided not to beat myself up about taking so long to actually put pen to paper to write this letter. Well, okay, that’s partly a lie, my inner critic did say, “Well, DUH, that was hard, dummy! Took you all of 5 minutes and look at how relieved you feel!” Along with the critic, there is a loving part of me that trusts that I carried this pain for some higher purpose that I don’t completely understand yet. Maybe it’s partly to share this experience with you today, just 10 minutes after I completed this powerful “cleansing” act, so that you can write a long held secret in an un-sent letter to the person who most needs to read it — YOU!